Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus on Monday called on both NBC and CNN to drop their planned film productions of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or face losing their partnerships with the RNC for 2016 presidential primary debates.

In letters to the chairman of NBC Entertainment, Robert Greenblatt, and CNN President Jeff Zucker, Priebus slammed the networks’ “thinly-veiled attempt at putting a thumb on the scales of the 2016 presidential election” as unfair to other potential candidates from both parties.

NBC announced last month it was planning a miniseries starring Diane Lane that would follow Clinton’s trajectory beginning in 1998, the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. The series was to air before Clinton could launch a hypothetical White House run. Days later CNN also announced it would produce a documentary to be released in 2014, according to the New York Times.

“If you have not agreed to pull this programming prior to the start of the RNC’s Summer Meeting on August 14, I will seek a binding vote of the RNC stating that the committee will neither partner with you in 2016 primary debates nor sanction primary debates which you sponsor,” Preibus wrote to the networks.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Catherine Thompson is a senior editor for Talking Points Memo in New York City. She came to the site in 2013 and reported on national affairs. Previously, she worked as a research assistant to investigative reporter Wayne Barrett. She can be reached at catherine@talkingpointsmemo.com.